Chamber and committees

A total baseload allocation of £15,425,618 has been made to the Community Justice Authorities for supporting community sentences in 2009-10. This represents an increase of £2 million to support increased workload and to ensure the immediacy and speed of completion of sentences.

I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) does not currently routinely screen prisoners for autistic spectrum disorder.

The SPS is assisting the University of Edinburgh and the charity Research Autism in their project to test the validity of a new screening instrument for autistic spectrum disorder in a number of establishments.

Further, the SPS has reviewed its service provision for learning disability and difficulties and is seeking to implement an improved alerting process to identify such people in custody. We intend to achieve this through improvements in use of available information and broadening the routes into assessment and care pathways.

People with autism spectrum disorder are most likely to be diagnosed in an out-patient clinic and managed in the community or general practice. Diagnostic information for patients attending outpatient clinics is not available centrally.

However, data on pupils with autism in state funded schools, identified in the 2007 census, is available in tables 1.7 and 1.9 in the statistical bulletin on the government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/07/28100032/0.

Data on pupils with autism in the independent sector in 2007 is available in tables 1.4 and 1.6 in the Independent School Census, September 2007, on the government website at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/04/29101007/0.

The Scottish Government published guidance for commissioners of health and social care services in 2008 recommending that local authorities and health boards should work together to identify and keep a record of people on the autism spectrum in their area. The eSAY project has been developed to ensure information about people with learning disabilities or autism spectrum disorders is recorded and measured in the same way across Scotland.

Primary responsibility for setting fire cover lies with Strathclyde Joint Fire Board. Under section 45 (1) of the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 ministers may make a property and facilities order in circumstances where they consider it necessary for public safety purposes. Such an order may be used to give general or specific directions to a fire and rescue authority in respect of the use of property and/or facilities. Scottish ministers would only exercise their discretionary powers to intervene if it was clear that action by them was warranted in line with the statutory tests. Ministers currently have no plans to intervene in respect of Parkhead fire station.

Guidance is available for Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service staff in relation to the prosecution of teaching staff as well as cases more generally where criminal offences are committed by those in a position of trust and cases where persons claim to have carried out physical punishment of children in the exercise of a parental right or of a right derived from having charge or care of a child. General guidance on the criteria for decision making and the range of options available to prosecutors dealing with reports is published in the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Prosecution Code.

There are currently no plans to establish a widening access unit to improve university uptake rates.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has lead responsibility for promoting widening access through its own activities, the four regional widening access forums and higher education institutions. In 2008, the SFC strengthened its commitment to widening participation by the establishment of an Access and Inclusion Committee to raise the profile of this activity. The Scottish Government welcomes the establishment of this committee and will continue to work closely with the SFC to promote widening access.

Local authorities have powers to identify issues of overcrowding under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987. To help address overcrowding, local authorities and registered social landlords are required to give reasonable preference in the allocation of their housing to those people living in overcrowded houses or those with large families. They also have responsibility for ensuring that houses in multiple occupation are licensed and that licensing conditions, including those relating to maximum occupancy, are complied with. Local authorities have a range of powers to deal with issues of poor housing quality and the landlord registration provisions allow them to refuse registration to those people who are not fit and proper to let houses.

The Scottish Government strongly encourages local authorities to make full use of all of the powers at their disposal.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 makes it clear that the Private Rented Housing Panel (PRHP) deals with complaints on repairing standard issues from tenants only. This Standard, which was introduced by the 2006 act, updated the landlord''s repairing obligations in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987. Those obligations could be enforced only by tenants taking court action. The PRHP was established to make it easier for tenants to seek redress.

As the Policy Memorandum for the Housing (Scotland) Bill explained in 2005, the possibility of having the repairing standard enforced directly against landlords by local authorities or an equivalent agency was considered. This would have been on the model of a local authority taking direct action on houses below the tolerable standard or in serious disrepair, by serving a statutory notice. However it was decided that the underlying principle of the 2006 act, that the householder should have prime responsibility for his or her housing conditions, should apply. The intention was to strengthen the existing mechanism for tenants to act on repair issues, rather than replace it with additional direct regulation by local authorities or other agencies. Since the idea of local authorities directly enforcing the repairing standard has been rejected, it would not be appropriate for local authorities to have the power to complain to a tribunal about breaches of the standard.

Local authorities already have powers to take direct action on sub-standard houses, the condition of which may also constitute breaches of some requirements of the repairing standard. These powers will be strengthened by the implementation of other provisions in the 2006 act. Local authorities also have an important role in informing tenants about their right to complain to the PRHP, advising them how to go about making a complaint, and, if necessary, assisting them to do so. The Scottish Government strongly encourages local authorities to provide such advice and assistance.

We therefore have no plans to allow anyone other than tenants to apply to the PRHP.

I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is as follows:

The following table illustrates the maximum daily population for each establishment in each of the last three months.

Max of Actual Population Each Month	Month
	October	November	December
Aberdeen	266	252	232
Addiewell	0	0	80
Barlinnie	1690	1682	1660
Cornton Vale	437	428	410
Dumfries	222	220	217
Edinburgh	902	895	875
Glenochil Prison	759	753	756
Greenock	346	340	340
Inverness	159	163	163
Kilmarnock	652	651	650
Open Estate	309	313	342
Perth	808	800	757
Peterhead	306	306	306
Polmont	718	725	710
Shotts	549	549	545